Getting to the locks:The Panama Canal story, part 2

Here I am, with the second part of the Panama Canal story.
After the many details of the Canal previously, let me tell you a bit about how the things work when a ship crossing the Panama Canal.
First of all, like in most ports, crossing The Panama Canal they have a special person who help to navigate the ship: the Pilot. The Pilot is actually a ship captain, who is familiar with the local waterways, much more then a usual ship captain. Actually it is mandatory for big ships to have a Pilot in board, who takes full charge of the ship in the Canal.
Even with Pilots, I still saw 2 accidents during my 20 or so crossing of the Canal, both ship was hitting some small island in Gatun Lake.
So, Pilot on board, all fine.
The most difficult thing is to get the ships safely to the lock, and to get them threw of the locks. For this, there are first the tugboats. These small looking boats has extraordinary power compare to their size. They have usually 2 of them to tow a mid-size ship into the lock, in case a real big ship sometimes 3 of them needed. I assume it also depends a bit on weather conditions, namely the wind.
After the tugboats did their jobs, there are trains to move the ships in the locks.
They attach cables to the ship, not only to pull it forward from one chamber to the next, but also to keep the ship safely away to hit the walls of the locks.
Usually they have 4 trains attached to a ship, but again, for the real big and heavy cargo ships they attach a total of 8 engines often, for extra power.
It is really a well organized teamwork to get the ships threw the locks. And it is a non-stop work as well, as the Panama-Canal has a busy schedule, with many ships waiting for their time to cross. The advantage is being on a cruiseship, that these crossings are in the daytime, so, you can watch and really enjoy the adventure and the nature itself, as it is amazing just as well as the Panama-Canal.

Pacific to Atlantic: the Panama Canal crossing

Crossing the Panama Canal is one of the most fascinating cruise you can have. I was lucky and did it several times on board Crystal Symphony, a 52000 ton luxury cruise ship. Before anyone start to wonder how I could pay for all those trips, I have to disappoint: I was working on board Crystal Symphony, so, it wasn't all a luxury vacation, however, I had great chance to see this man-made wonder: the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal is connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic, and it is one of the most important shipping route for cargo ships, and also being an attraction by itself the Panama Canal also became an increasingly popular cruise for passenger ships.
It is not a similar experience to Suez Canal, where you just cruise threw a narrow channel. Not at all! Opposite to all my imagination, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans water level isn't the same!! Matter of fact, the level of Pacific Ocean is 26 meters higher then those of the Atlantic's. To handle this, they created a lock system in Panama. There is 3 locks, from the Pacific they are: Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, and finally on the Atlantic end the Gatun locks. To cross the Panama Canal takes around 8-9 hours, a total distance of 77 km.
Most my photos here taken at the Miraflores locks.
The locks used to lift or lower the ships during there passage between the two Oceans. For this, they actually don't use anything but the water from the Gatun Lake. The Gatun Lake not only a huge water storage; it is maybe the most spectacular part of the Panama Canal crossing, after the gates. The lake is full of small inlets, and bigger islands, all covered with the lushest emerald of jungle. Rainforest in its best, as it is nothing, but the frequent rain help to refill the lake, thus make possible to work the locks. And they need all the water: every time a ship cross the Panama Canal, they "waste" around 200000 cubic meter of fresh water from the lake!
On the photos, you can see some moments of passing threw the Miraflores locks, a lift of 16.5 meters coming from the Pacific Ocean. You can see easily this lift of the container ship just in front of mine.
I will write a bit more about the Panama Canal in a next entry.